Postmates is coming to London

Delivery company Postmates is planning to launch in London, CEO
Bastian Lehmann announced on Monday morning.

Speaking at London tech conference TechCrunch Disrupt, Lehmann
says the company plans to roll out in the British capital at some
point in the second quarter of 2016, following a launch in Canada
in Q1.

The San Francisco company follows a similar model to Uber and
other on-demand services, using contractors — rather than
employees — to carry out its deliveries. These contractors are
free to pick their own hours and do it alongside other jobs, but
don’t have the same benefits regular employment offers.

Its model is focused on quick, low-cost deliveries — like food,
coffee or small items that a customer needs fast. In the US, its
partners include fast food company Chipotle, and Starbucks.

In June 2015, Postmates raised $80 million (£53 million) at a
valuation of more than $400 million (£265 million). According to its website, it now
operates in more than 110 different cities — all currently in the
US.

London will join these next year.

Uber — the hottest company in the on-demand economy — is also
experimenting with deliveries. But Lehmann played down any
potential competition there. “Uber is a great company,” he said,
“but that space is so huge.” (Although when he met Uber CEO
Travis Kalanick, Kalanick told he he would “see you in the
trenches.”)

He cited Grubhub and Seemless as competitors. “Let’s get bigger
than [them] and maybe we can think about taking on Amazon.”

Looking forward, Lehmann suggested Postmates — which is currently
doing around 1 million deliveries a month — could one day rival
incumbents like FedEx in scale. Our model is “defensible at
scale,” he said, citing FedEx and UPS. “The more scale yo have,
the more you can drive down the costs.”